Soon, the three teens were
in Jane's room, leafing through the sketchbook. “These are really
good,” Daria said.
“Thanks. I do have
talent. It runs in the family,” Jane said.
Suddenly the house was
shaken by loud discordant music from the basement. Jennifer gave Jane
a look.
“Ok, most of the family,”
Jane conceded, as her brother Trent continued to rock the house at
its foundations.
'Must be a new song,' Jennifer thought. She didn't
recognise the (rather vague) tune.
“Ok,” Daria said, she glanced at the page she had
stopped at. The picture described by the lines looked unnatural.
“You're really bursting out of the picture plane here,” she said.
Jennifer briefly looked at the picture. Her eyes opened
with with shock before she looked away. 'That's just wrong,' she
thought.
“Oh, yeah. That
particular model was quite bursty. I think she had her bursts
done,” Jane said. There was another jarring burst of rock/metal
music from the basement. “Sounds like all of Mystik Spiral rather
than just Trent,” she mused.
Jennifer nodded in agreement.
“Mystik Spiral?” Daria
asked. 'Sounds like the name for a Doors cover band, rather than
whatever they are attempting to be,' she thought.
“That's Trent's band. I
could introduce you to them,” Jane offered.
Daria thought about it. “As much as I would like to
meet your brother, we need to get to school,” she said.
Jane looked at the time. “You're right. You will have
to meet Trent another time,” she said, wistfully.
Jennifer looked at Daria meaningfully. Daria sighed.
Jane chuckled. Soon the 3 teens were on their way out of the house,
on their way to school.
Andrea looked at the iMac screen as Quinn's AppleScript
script finished running. She sat down on the robin's-egg-blue bed,
next to one of Quinn's stuffed animals. “I must admitt that I was
sceptical when I saw that you listed AppleScript on your application,
Quinn.” she said.
“Like I would have a Mac, and not use it?” Quinn
asked.
Andrea scoffed at that. “Why have a Mac at all?”
“Apple does make programs that are interesting, and
their hardware designs are cute, especially the iMac, second
to the iPod. Anyhow, OS X is a good operating system, especially the
'Tiger' release,” Quinn said.
'Of course she would think that the iMac is cute. This
room just screams 'cute'. It says 'Hackers can be cute,' Andrea
thought, as she looked around the room that was half 'hacker cave'
and half 'typical popular 00's teen girl. It couldn't be more
different to her own room if it tried. She stood up as she looked at
a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex poster. “I suppose
so,” she said.
Quinn could see that Andrea was distracted, looking
around her room. She wondered if it had to do with what she had said
the previous day. “Are you ok?” she asked.
“I'm fine,” Andrea said, flatly.
“Ok, So what is the AppleScript score?” Quinn asked.
'Even if it's abysmal, it is worth finding out,' she thought.
“B+,” Andrea said as she produced a form.
Quinn took the form and placed it between the iMac and
one of her desktop PCs. She saw that Andrea had filled it out. 'Of
course she would,' she thought as she signed it. She handed it back
to Andrea.
“You are now a full member of the Programming Club,
though you can hand the form in yourself,” Andrea said, handing the
form back.
“Cool!” Quinn said as she placed the form in her
laptop case.
“I would do it first thing,” Andrea said.
“Why?”
“Best to do it that way,” Andrea said,
enigmatically.
“Ok,” Quinn said. 'What is she up to?' she pondered,
not for the first time.
Friday, October 8, 2005
Before homeroom, Quinn entered the office. “Hi, how
may I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“Hi, I am handing in this club membership
application,” Quinn said, as she handed over the Programming Club
Full Membership application.
“A third club, Ms Morgendorffer? Ms. Li would be
thrilled to hear that,” the receptionist said.
“She would?” Quinn asked, wondering why the
Principal would be interested in her student's activities.
“Yes. Less than ten percent of the the Lawndale High
student body has more than two extracurricular activities.”
“Why would she be worried about that?” Quinn asked,
still curious.
“The Principal is of the opinion that one can never
have too much school spirit.” the receptionist said as she typed.
Quinn thought, that certainly jived with what she knew
of the principal so far. “That makes sense, what with the way she
pronounces the school's name and all.”
“That's it, done. You are now a full member of the
Programming Club, as well as the Computer Club and the Anime Club.”
“Cool,” Quinn said, as she left.
At lunch, Quinn sat with Cindy. “Where's Kristen?”
she asked.
Cindy looked at Quinn “I'm not sure,” she said.
Just then Kristen came up to the table, carrying her
lunch and talking on her cell phone. “Thanks, that's great. It's a
great help.” A pause, then. “You too, bro, bye,” she said. She
turned to Cindy and Quinn. “All settled, Keith will be able to
drive us to Crewe Neck's main checkpoint tomorrow night.” She said,
as she sat down.
Cindy considered this “But what about afterwards?”
she asked.
“We still have to figure that out,” Kristen said.
“Many people will be going. It probably will be safe
to walk back into Lawndale proper, right?” Quinn wondered.
“That's an option,” Kristen said.
“If they're all leaving at the same time, perhaps,”
Cindy pointed out.
“Like that's going to be an issue,” Quinn said.
“True,” Kristen stated. It was likely that most of
the people going would leave at the same time.
“But what about your sister? Wouldn't she want to
leave early?” Cindy asked.
“Not to mention Jennifer. I know she doesn't like
going to parties,” Kristen said.
“Oh yeah, but Daria will likely have her own
transportation lined up. She likes having contingency plans,” Quinn
said.
“Besides, Jennifer has a car,” Cindy said.
“Oh yeah,” Kristen said.
They continued their discussion about the party and
their plans for it.
Saturday, October 9, 2005
Late in the afternoon, Quinn walked along the street,
looking for Cindy's house. The street, located approximately halfway
between Glen Oaks Lane and the Cranberry Commons Mall, was lined with
many nondescript houses. She recalled the house number that Cindy had
given her, and the way Cindy had described her house. 'Medium sized
house, two thirds the size of mine, brown bricks, green tiles and
blue curtains in the windows,' she thought.
She soon found the
house, although the name BROLSMA
in large letters above the name ROBINSON
in smaller letters on the mailbox confused her for a moment. She
shrugged and walked up the path.
Cindy answered the door. “Hi Quinn, come in,” she
said.
Quinn entered. “I found it relatively quickly, though
the mailbox was slighly confusing,” she said.
Cindy was amused. “Yeah, Brolsma is my father's
surname, Robinson's my mother's,” she said.
“Ok,” Quinn said. 'Morgendorffer sounds cooler than
Barksdale, thank goodness,' she thought.
“Kristen and Keith will be here at six, so we have
some time to get ready,” Cindy said. She looked at Quinn, the
ubiquitous laptop case had been replaced by bag of clothes.
“Cool! Lets go see what you have to wear,” Quinn
said.
“I hope you're not going to go overboard?” Cindy
asked, with slight concern as she led Quinn upstairs towards her
bedroom.
“Depends on what you call 'overboard',” Quinn said.
Cindy held back a sigh.
